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Angela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2
by Jack Bowers
On Swingin' with Legends 2, her fourth recorded collaboration with arranger (and husband) Ron Aprea's big band, vocalist Angela DeNiro sings beautifully--and receives a lot of help from her friends, especially guests Ken Peplowski on clarinet, Randy Brecker on trumpet and Lew Tabackin on tenor sax and flute. And what a band! Well-stocked with stars who are eager to fly whenever Aprea raises his baton. Not that DeNiro needs much help. She is quite simply a marvelous ...
read moreAngela DeNiro: Swingin' with Legends 2
by Pierre Giroux
Vocalist Angela DeNiro sings with blue-ribbon vocal abilities. This is evident in her release Swingin' With Legends 2 . Accompanied by the Ron Aprea Big Band, supplemented by special guests Randy Brecker, Ken Peplowski and Lew Tabackin, she sails through fourteen love songs written by some of the greatest composers of the American Songbook, providing a deep understanding and command of the material she performs. The album opens with “New York City Blues," a not frequently ...
read moreAngela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band: Swingin' with Legends 2
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Swingin' with Legends 2 from Angela DeNiro with the Ron Aprea Big Band, is a follow-up to their first Legends effort in 1988. The album, as was its Grammy-entered predecessor, is a quintessentially classic big band recording featuring a fine female vocalist. The fourteen tunes here are predominantly from the Great American Songbook, with jazz greats Randy Brecker, Lew Tabackin, and Ken Peplowski delivering outstanding cameos. The opener “New York Blues" is a flat-out swinger with DeNiro belting ...
read moreEyal Vilner Big Band: The Jam!
by Jack Bowers
Simply leading a big band in 2022 is cause for celebration. Leading a big band as sharp and talented as Eyal Vilner's New York- based ensemble is cause for far more than that. Vilner, an Israeli-born composer, arranger and woodwind specialist, formed the band in 2008, one year after arriving in New York City. He has been busy since then shaping its identity and refining its style, and his persistence pays off big-time on the band's second album, The Jam! ...
read moreChad Lefkowitz-Brown and the Global Big Band: Open World
by Jack Bowers
There are times, thanks to the indestructible human spirit, when even the most horrendous scourge--say, a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives in countries around the world--can lead to the occasional silver lining, a small yet persistent light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Case in point: Open World, a superlative new album by saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (commonly known as Chad LB) and the Global Big Band, whose name describes exactly what it is: an ensemble ...
read moreArturo O'Farrill: Virtual Birdland
by Jack Bowers
Whenever an obstacle presents itself--even one as devastating and disruptive as a global pandemic--it's a sure bet that musicians will find a way around it, a way to keep making music even in the most grievous circumstances. Jazz musicians have been especially creative during the Covid-19 scourge, using social media, the internet and any other means at their disposal to share their music with the world. True, the paychecks aren't as large or as regular as once they were, but ...
read moreSchapiro 17: Human Qualities
by Jack Bowers
Following its splendid premiere recording, an exploration of Miles Davis' unrivaled album Kind Of Blue (Capitol Records, 1959), composer/arranger Jon Schapiro's 17-member ensemble broadens its horizons on Human Qualities, pairing seven of the maestro's astute and adventurous charts with the Roberta Flack best-seller, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." This time around, Schapiro proves that he need rely on nothing more than his own considerable experience as a jazz artist to create an album that expresses his point ...
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